


The Thing With Feathers

by FrostFire82



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Like damn I have never written this much angst ever!, Mental Illness, Mentions of Amy Pond - Freeform, Mentions of Former Companions, No really ANGST!, quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2082654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostFire82/pseuds/FrostFire82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into The Doctor's mind as he deals with Vincent's breakdown in Season 5 Episode 10.  As the Doctor tries to rally his forces against the creature that is terrorizing Auvers-sur-Oise, he is battling an oncoming storm that has been brewing for some time now.</p>
<p>Mentions of depression, grief, and loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing With Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It's fanfic, I own nothing. Can't make any money off it.

The Thing With Feathers

As he stepped inside the bedroom and observed the shaking shoulders of the painter, he felt a tightness growing in his chest.  The man lay prostrate on his small bed, his fingers clenching the bedclothes as his choked sobs died in the pillow.  Images burned in the Time Lord’s mind; ones he would rather forget.  The image of a slender male figure lying on the deck of the Tardis with a purple cardigan in his grasp and bloodshot eyes.  The sight of Donna looking right past him as though he was utterly inconsequential.  The scene of Gallifrey burnt and scarred by war and its people lying broken upon the ground.  And for a moment he could hear the sobs and screams of man half-crazed with grief and hate.  A man who could never keep what he loved.

“Vincent, can I help?” His voice sounded so small, even to his own ears.

“It’s so clear you cannot help.”  The Doctor took his steps cautiously; the man in front of him had been known to have some violent outbursts during his depressive states.  But what drew him closer was the absolute devastation that was unmistakable in the creaking voice of the artist.

“And when you leave – and everyone always leaves – I will be left once more with an empty heart and no hope.”

_They leave._

He nearly stopped short at that, but instead crouched down beside the bed.

_They leave. Because they should or because they find someone else.  And some of them, some of them… forget me._

There was a roaring in his ears, like a hurricane bearing down upon him.  It seemed only too fitting for him, ‘The Oncoming Storm’.  It was his past, his pain, roaring its terrible roar and gnashing its terrible teeth and rolling its terrible eyes and showing its terrible claws.  He remembered how he’d made it back to the Tardis after each loss and screamed and sobbed and begged until he would fall nearly comatose to the floor.

_I suppose in the end, they break my heart._

In his hearts such a pain swelled and raged as he looked at the man laid low before him.  Each beat of those hearts cried out, _he’s right, he knows! The pain, the agony of our grief! It is eternal, it will never end… the sadness will last forever!_   He pushed those thoughts back into the depths of his mind.  Now was not the time to feel, not with lives at stake.  He pushed the dark bile of his soul into the pit of his stomach and did what he knew he must: lie.

“My experience is that there is, you know, surprisingly, always hope.” And for a moment he believed that lie, that beautiful lie.  His hearts warmed with the thoughts of how he met each beloved companion.  How he’d grabbed Rose and fled the shop, how he’d watched Martha try to figure out his diagnosis, the way Jack had smiled and flirted, Donna’s outraged rants, dear sweet brave little Amelia feeding him fish custard.  Perhaps, he mused, someone would always come about to save him from his own painful past and make him want to be a good man.  And that someone would pull him out of his darkest thoughts and fill his days with laughter and chips and running.

“Then your experience is incomplete!” Vincent growled and fixed him with a desolate stare.

And all at once, the warmth was gone and in its place a hollowness.  An aching, bone-deep cold set into him, clutching at his hearts.  _Incomplete…_ So much still lay before him.  So very much…

Vincent’s eyes were dark and faraway as he spoke, “I know how it will end. And it will not end well.”  He sucked in gasping breaths as the tears ran down his cheeks.

He couldn’t bear it.  He couldn’t stand to watch the man descend into that darkness or the mind.  He slapped a smile on and reached out to clasp the ginger man’s shoulder.  A tactic many of his companions had used on him at one time or another.  _Try to cheer up! Up an’ at ‘em!_ He could hear their voices chorusing in his mind.  It was worth a shot.

“Come on. Come out, come on. Let’s go outside!” he said with a grin.

The reaction was instantaneous; the rage came flooding out of Vincent as he shouted for the Doctor to leave.  Even as the Doctor scurried out and shut the door behind him he could hear Vincent’s inquiry, “ _What are you doing here?_ ”  He slumped against the door outside, his head hanging low.

_What are you doing here?_

“I don’t know.” He whispered, as the sobs were once more muffled. “I don’t even know.”

He was here because… because… because there was always something that needed stopping, someone that needed saving, some reason that brought him back.  An arrogant notion that he would triumph.

_You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand! You say no! You have the guts to do what’s right, even when everyone else just runs away._

_No! 'Cause this is what I'm gonna do — I'm gonna rescue her! I'm gonna save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm gonna save the Earth, and then — just to finish you off — I'm gonna wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!_

But he was a coward! He ought to be running from it! All of it! Like he’d run that very first time from the Untempered Schism.

_Courage isn’t just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway._

_There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought._

But why? WHY?! Why must he be the one? Why did it ALWAYS have to be HIM?

_It’s like when you’re a kid. The first time they tell you that the world’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it ‘cause everything looks like it’s standin’ still.  I can **feel** it; the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin’ at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. And we’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go… That’s who I am._

_I’m the last of the Time Lords. They’re all gone.  I’m the only survivor. I’m left traveling on my own, ‘cause there’s no one else._

_There are laws. There are laws of time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died._

He was the last one… the only one able to do it.  It made him so tired to think of all that still lay ahead of him.  All those times when he would be… alone.  He ached remembering all that he had lost… and all that he would lose in the future.  Leaving Sarah Jane in Aberdeen, seeing Martha return to her family, Donna looking at him like he was no more than a face in the crowd, watching poor Rory be forgotten by Amy, losing Romana during the war, Rose… His hearts still skipped at the thought of her.

_You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords._

_I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone._

_I just want you to know, there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light and singing songs of Donna Noble. A thousand, million light years away. They will never forget her, while she can never remember. But for one moment... one shining moment... she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe._

Their voices swirled around him and he found himself trapped within the sound of the past.  The storm of anguish and fear rolled over him like a thunder storm.  He slid down the door and hid his face in his hands.  _Too loud!  Too much! Help me… please help me!  Make it stop!_ He clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into his hair, dropping his forehead too his knees.  He could feel the tears running down his face, searing his skin like a hot iron.  He could feel the pressure building at the base of his skull, threatening to boil over and show his true colors.  His dark, bloody colors.

And in his despair, he heard the voice of one long gone.  He could hear The Master whispering cruelly in his ear.  That mocking laughter echoed in his mind and made him shiver in horror.

_Your fault...  S'all your fault.  You take them and show them these amazing things and then abandon them because - what? - they get old?  Find love?  Crave a bit of normality?  And why?  Because they fear you... They can smell the blood soaking your soul!  HA!  The Destroyer of Worlds!  No wonder they were scared of you...  You're nothing more than a murderer.  Just like me, eh?  When it comes right down to it, you and I are pretty similar!_

Then softly… softly it came.  It was like a sigh at first, but through the noise it came.  And above the sound of his tumultuous thoughts there was a sound.  A shaking voice that spoke in… fear? Anger?  No! It was reverence.  And the young voice drowned the tempest in his mind; enveloped it in a warm light, like the flame of a candle.

_He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe.  And... He’s wonderful._

Tim… dear, skinny, brilliant Timothy Latimer.  Little Tim who was only fourteen when they sent him off to the war.  Who’d stood up to the bombs and the Family of Blood.  Who’d looked into the memories and soul of an old Time Lord without hesitation.  Who’d said he was afraid but acted so courageously. Who’d been so… brave.  Brave because what he saw in an old fob watch gave him hope.

Hope.

His mind flashed back.  Back and back and back, to a young woman - dark of hair and eye - who spoke of hope as he sat in her parlor and watched her pen skate across the pages of paper laid before her.

_“Hope” is the thing with feathers -_

_That perches in the soul -_

_And sings the tune without the words -_

_And never stops - at all –_

It was such a small thing really.  A little fragile thing.  Hope.  So easily forgotten, and yet it never was.  

_Yes, hope,_ he thought with a sigh.   _There is still hope._

He wiped at his eyes, clearing away the tears that had settled, and stood with a groan.  He would keep that hope until his very last breath.  He looked into the bright sun and thought of his dear friends, all of them so brave and full of hope.  Hope that he’d given them.  And how they never knew how much hope they had given back.

“I will hope.” He whispered into the warmth of the sunlight.  “I will always hope.”

_Finis_


End file.
